lable mirth; coming
to the second, we run with a slower but stronger tread; coming to the
third, our step is feeble; coming to the fourth, our breath entirely gives
out. We throw down the bat on the black hunk of death, and in the evening
catchers and pitchers go home to find the family gathered and the food
prepared. So may we all find the candles lighted, and the table set, and
the old folks at home.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FULL-BLOODED COW.

We never had any one drop in about six o'clock p.m. whom we were more glad
to see than Fielding, the Orange County farmer. In the first place, he
always had a good appetite, and it did not make much difference what we had
to eat. He would not nibble about the end of a piece of bread, undecided as
to whether he had better take it, nor sit sipping his tea as though the
doctor had ordered him to take only ten drops at a time, mixed with a
little sugar and hot water. Perpetual contact with fresh air and the fields
and the mountains gave him a healthy body, while the religion that he
learned in the little church down by the mill-dam kept him in healthy
spirits. Fielding keeps a great drove of cattle and has an overflowing
dairy. As we handed him the cheese he said, "I really believe this is of my
own making." "Fielding," I inquired, "how does your dairy thrive, and have
you any new stock on your farm? Come give us a little touch of the
country." He gave me a mischievous look and said, "I will not tell you a
word until you let me know all about that full-blooded cow, of which I have
heard something. You need not try to hide that story any longer." So we
yielded to his coaxing. It was about like this:

The man had not been able to pay his debts. The mortgage on the farm had
been foreclosed. Day of sale had come. The sheriff stood on a box reading
the terms of vendue. All payments to be made in six months. The auctioneer
took his place. The old man and his wife and the children all cried as the
piano, and the chairs, and the pictures, and the carpets, and the bedsteads
went at half their worth. When the piano went, it seemed to the old people
as if the sheriff were selling all the fingers that had ever played on it;
and when the carpets were struck off, I think father and mother thought of
the little feet that had tramped it; and when the bedstead was sold, it
brought to mind the bright, curly heads that had slept on it long before
the dark days had come, and father had put his name